July 7, 2026

Spend on what you touch every day and what is expensive to change later. Save on what nobody sees and what is cheap to replace. That principle will get you a better kitchen for the same money than almost any other decision you make.

Here is how it applies in practice.

Spend it here

Drawer runners and hinges

You will open these forty times a day for twenty years. Full-extension soft-close runners are the single most noticeable upgrade in daily use, and they should be standard rather than an extra. If a quote does not name the brand, ask.

The worktop by the sink and hob

This is where the wear happens. If budget forces a compromise, a better material on the working run and a simpler one on a low-traffic peninsula is a perfectly respectable answer, and almost nobody notices.

Handles

They are the only part of the kitchen your hand is actually on. They are also relatively cheap in the scheme of a £40,000 project, and changing them later is easy, so this is a rare case where you can start modest and upgrade.

Getting the layout right

Free, and worth more than any material choice. A kitchen that works badly with an expensive worktop is still a kitchen that works badly.

Save it here

Fewer, larger units

Every carcass carries its own material, hardware and labour cost. Three 600mm units cost meaningfully more than two 900mm units covering the same wall, and the wider drawers are usually more useful.

Interiors nobody sees

The inside of a high cupboard and the back of a larder can be a simpler material without anyone ever knowing. We will tell you where this is safe.

Standard depths where it does not matter

Bespoke should mean bespoke where it counts. A run of base units along a straight wall rarely needs a non-standard depth, and asking for one adds cost for no gain.

Appliances

We supply at no markup, or you keep the ones you have. If your oven is four years old and works, there is no reason to replace it because the kitchen around it is new.

The most expensive metre in any kitchen

Moving the sink. Once the waste pipe moves you are into floor work, drainage falls and often a builder, and a decision that looked like a small improvement on a drawing becomes several thousand pounds. If the sink can stay where it is, let it.

The second most expensive decision is adding an island to a room that cannot hold one. It needs 3.6m of clear floor on either side to work. Below that it makes the room worse and costs you several thousand pounds for the privilege.

What we would do with £40,000

A medium kitchen, well laid out, in a veneer we would still like in ten years. Blum throughout. A good worktop on the working run. Lighting done properly at the workshop rather than bodged on site. And roughly £4,000 left unspent, because something always comes up in a renovation and having a contingency is worth more than another upgrade.